“If you are sure of your facts, you should defend your position.” – Cecilia Payne Cecilia Payne was an astronomer and astrophysicist who discovered how to understand the composition of stars in terms of the relative abundance of hydrogen and helium. Her thesis was attacked by a superior claiming it could not possibly be true that… Continue reading Defend Your Position
Author: Dan Pouliot
A New Hampshire native, Dan received his BFA in Oil Painting from UNH; his digital works are in multiple permanent collections. Dan’s been a positive psychology student/practitioner, a blogger, an amateur Remote Viewer, and now a novelist. His dual passions for anomalous cognition and positive thinking set the stage for his debut young adult novel, Super Human, published by PortalStar Publishing. Dan describes Super Human as The Karate Kid meets Escape to Witch Mountain.
Mind Over Milkshake: How Your Thoughts Fool Your Stomach
Alex Spiegel over at NPR quoting Alia Crum regarding the findings in her recent study indicating that our beliefs about food effect how our bodies metabolize that food: “Our beliefs matter in virtually every domain, in everything we do,” Crum says. “How much is a mystery, but I don’t think we’ve given enough credit to… Continue reading Mind Over Milkshake: How Your Thoughts Fool Your Stomach
Religion, Science, Intuition, Analytical Mind; Dangerous Conflations
Science emerged in a time when superstition led to attributing causes to unrelated things and religion was abused to promote suppression/oppression of ideas. Whenever people organize, organization can magnify our undesirable tendencies; religion and science are no exceptions. No institution is immune from human failings.
Positive Thinking; Harmful for Some?
Jeremy Dean’s (PsyBlog) recent nuance-light headline caught my attention: Why Positive Thinking May Be Harmful for Some A recently published study 1 by researchers at Michigan State University revealed that habitual worriers’ (Dean calls them “natural worriers”, a specious phrase) brains ‘backfire’ when trying to put a positive spin on a scenario that seems negative. Lead… Continue reading Positive Thinking; Harmful for Some?
Know Who to Ask About ESP
Never ask a man if sexism exists. Never ask a white person if racism exists. Never ask Scott McGreal over at Psychology Today if there is a scientific taboo against ESP. Ask four-time president of the Parapsychology Association, Dean Radin:
More Truth in Opposites
This is yet another article in a common theme. See also Truth in Opposites in Three Stories and Negative Thinkers Have It Right. It has been in the forefront of my mind lately that one person can have the exact opposite response to a personal growth concept as another, and yet, when examined closely, neither person is wrong.… Continue reading More Truth in Opposites